It is now generally agreed that half of the world’s 6,000 languages
will go out of use by the end of the present century. This course
investigates the social and cultural conditions that are leading to
language shift and language death and explores what can be done to
maintain and revitalize threatened minority and indigenous languages.
Students will work with case studies that show how practical problems
have been dealt with in communities speaking diverse languages. They
will select a particular endangered language to focus on in their own
work and report on their findings to the class.